Articles and Resources

QUOTE: What we need, then, is some kind of middle ground, Negroponte suggests — but he also doesn’t quite suggest where that might be. Instead, he likens available bandwidth to a limited natural physical resource. If it’s immoral to use up all of the air, or water, or oil on frivolous things, is it perhaps also immoral to use up the internet?

QUOTE: On Monday, the Copyright Alert System, or “Six Strikes”, went into affect across the five biggest ISPs in the U.S. The system hopes to catch those pirating content over P2P networks, and send them a notice detailing their infringement. The hope is that those who are caught will start using legal alternatives. To better understand the CAS, we have to look at what the Center for Copyright Information is doing with it. First, there are three tiers to the CAS that consumers should be aware of with each tier having two levels within it. The three tiers are as follows – educational alerts, acknowledgement alerts and mitigation measures.

QUOTE: In 1943, Vice President Henry Wallace published a book celebrating the coming "century of the common man." That century did not last very long. We have transitioned instead into the era of the clever man and clever woman. We have revised our institutions, our programs, our rules in ways that offer profitable new chances to those with cultural know-how -- and that inflict disastrous consequences on those who are overwhelmed by a world of ever-more-abundant and ever-more-risky choices.

QUOTE: Changing course after an unwelcome national uproar, the Virginia Senate adopted a revised bill on Tuesday that still requires doctors to perform an ultrasound on women before they have an abortion, but also says that women cannot be forced to have an invasive vaginal ultrasound....The Senate vote came after a bitter debate in which Democrats pleaded with the body not to adopt a bill that they said remained — even with the changes — demeaning to women and insulting to doctors.

QUOTE: The question before the court is not whether there is a constitutional “right” to lie. Rather, it’s a question about the scope of the government’s power over individuals — whether the government can criminalize saying untrue things about oneself even if there is no harm to any identifiable person, no intent to cheat anyone or gain unfair advantage, no receipt of anything of value and no interference with the administration of justice or any other compelling government interest.

QUOTE: The provision in President Obama’s health care law requiring Americans to buy health insurance or face tax penalties was ruled unconstitutional on Friday by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta. It was the first appellate review to find the provision unconstitutional — a previous federal appeals court upheld the law...

QUOTE: The lawsuit is not demanding that states recognize polygamous marriage. Instead...will ask the federal courts to tell states that they cannot punish polygamists for their own “intimate conduct” so long as they are not breaking other laws, like those regarding child abuse, incest or seeking multiple marriage licenses.

QUOTE: They also fear that restrictions on soft drinks would set a precedent for the government to distinguish between good and bad foods and to ban the use of food stamps for other products… The plan is unfair to food stamp recipients because it treats them differently from other customers.

QUOTE: Lawmakers in Maryland on Friday failed to gather enough votes to pass a bill that would have allowed same-sex couples to marry, withdrawing it from consideration after hours of emotional debate and effectively killing the bill’s chances for passage this year... The National Organization for Marriage and the Family Research Council, both highlighted African-American and religious opponents of the bill as central to its defeat.

QUOTE: Across Africa and the developing world, a new global land rush is gobbling up large expanses of arable land. Despite their ageless traditions, stunned villagers are discovering that African governments typically own their land and have been leasing it, often at bargain prices, to private investors and foreign governments for decades to come.

QUOTE: The judge, Henry E. Hudson of Federal District Court in Richmond, said the law’s requirement that most Americans obtain insurance exceeded the regulatory authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause... “Neither the Supreme Court nor any federal circuit court of appeals has extended Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market.”

QUOTE: [Rand] Paul thrust us into one of thorniest corners of that larger question: What's the government's role in regulating how private actors -- private individuals and the private sector -- treat people of another race. The framers of the 14th Amendment wouldn't go there; in 1868, America wasn't ready for it.

QUOTE: While the District and five states have legalized same-sex marriage and consequently allow divorces, granting same-sex divorce elsewhere is often murky. As married same-sex couples cross into states that explicitly ban or don't recognize gay marriage, they face a dilemma.

QUOTE: here's the dilemma: On one hand, doctors believe—despite some evidence to the contrary—that there are too many frivolous lawsuits, and they respond by ordering a lot of unnecessary testing and treatment... On the other hand, patients often get harmed by negligent medical care, and lawsuits are their only way to fight back.

QUOTE: Just as Congressional leaders are calling for an extension of a popular $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers, or even an expansion to all home purchasers, government investigators reported Thursday that their audits suggest widespread abuse and errors in the program.

QUOTE: Proponents argue they should not be prohibited by their neighbors or local community agreements from saving on energy bills or acting in an environmentally minded way [by hanging laundry to dry]. Opponents say the laws lifting bans erode local property rights and undermine the autonomy of private communities.

QUOTE: Undercover investigators working on behalf of the New York City mayor's office repeatedly bought guns from unlicensed dealers at gun shows even though they disclosed they probably couldn't pass a background check.

QUOTE: The issues raised by truckers [on in-cab computers] show the challenges facing advocates for tougher distracted-driving laws, given that so many Americans have grown accustomed to talking and texting behind the wheel.

QUOTE: Who gets to set the limiting number for population growth? Who are the targets of restrained fertility and is this just? And, ultimately, is there an ideal number for human population on this planet?

QUOTE: Once endangered, the bald eagle has rebounded in recent decades but remains under the protection of the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. The law provides an exception for Native Americans who want eagles for ceremonies... But many tribes eschew both options, saying the former can take years and yield unsuitable specimens.

QUOTE: efforts to cover consumer electronics [in electrical efficiency rules] like televisions and game consoles have been repeatedly derailed by manufacturers worried about the higher cost of meeting the standards.

QUOTE: Republicans in general charge that since none of the [healthcare] bills contain enforcement mechanisms to check that recipients of government subsidies are legal, illegal immigrants would be able to sneak into the system and get US cash [for healthcare subsidies] anyway.

QUOTE: Text messaging and cellphones have gotten most of the attention lately [as dangerous distractions for drivers], and it might take [U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray] LaHood's federal influence to wean the nation from them. Almost 90 percent of Americans own cellphones.

QUOTE: Military imposters are nothing new. But the problem has grown or at least become more obvious as charlatans are easily able to find fake military documents, medals and uniforms on auction Web sites.

QUOTE: With childhood obesity on the rise across the USA, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, [Jerri] Gray's attorney says it could open the door to more criminal action against parents whose children have become dangerously overweight.

QUOTE: [Americans] increasingly use phones, navigation devices and even laptops to turn their cars into mobile offices, chat rooms and entertainment centers, making roads more dangerous. A disconnect between perception and reality worsens the problem. New studies show that drivers overestimate their own ability to safely multitask, even as they worry about the dangers of others doing it.

QUOTE: Breckenridge [,CO]... recently passed an ordinance requiring residents to thin vegetation around their home... the new law has infuriated many residents, who call it an encroachment on their rights and demand its repeal.

QUOTE: A looming "gray wave" of Baby Boomers expected on the nation's highways over the next two decades has prompted states to launch programs aimed at allowing seniors to keep driving as long as they can without endangering themselves or others.

QUOTE: Four decades after a constitutional amendment guaranteed equal rights for Australia’s Aborigines, including the right to legally drink, an increasing number of indigenous towns and smaller communities deep in the outback are curtailing the sale of alcohol.

QUOTE: Gun-control activists say the [Government Accountability Office] report demonstrates potentially lethal flaws in gun laws. But gun-rights advocates counter that the terror list is perhaps a greater menace in itself. They see it as ripe for manipulation – allowing the government to tar people as terrorists when it is politically expedient to do so.

QUOTE: A last-minute Bush administration plan to grant sweeping new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds has provoked a torrent of objections, including a strenuous protest from the government agency that enforces job discrimination laws.

QUOTE: "In a lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union alleges that the government is systematically discriminating against U.S.-born citizens on the basis of ethnicity and national origin. Attorneys for the plaintiff assert that such arbitrary bans disproportionately affect rural and poor people who have less access to doctors."

QUOTE: The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control. Under the draft of a proposed rule, hospitals, clinics, researchers and medical schools would have to sign “written certifications” as a prerequisite to getting money under any program run by the Department of Health and Human Services. Such certification would also be required of state and local governments, forbidden to discriminate, in areas like grant-making, against hospitals and other institutions that have policies against providing abortion.

QUOTE: In the most detailed examination yet of Senator John McCain’s eligibility to be president, a law professor at the University of Arizona has concluded that neither Mr. McCain’s birth in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone nor the fact that his parents were American citizens is enough to satisfy the constitutional requirement that the president must be a “natural-born citizen.”

QUOTE: President Bush's recent executive order mandating that all federal contractors use E-Verify and legislation pending in Congress that would make the program mandatory for all employers nationwide have heightened concerns among critics that thousands of legal Americans will be unfairly denied jobs.

QUOTE: Bringing polygamist families closer to regaining custody of their children, a divided Supreme Court of Texas agreed Thursday that the state had illegally seized 468 girls and boys from a West Texas ranch last month on unproven grounds of physical and sexual abuse.

QUOTE: The exception, issued by the Chengdu Population and Family Planning Committee in Sichuan Province, said qualified parents could apply for legal permission to have another child, according to The Associated Press. Thousands of parents have openly challenged the government over why so many schools collapsed during the earthquake. An estimated 10,000 students are believed to have died.

QUOTE: Along his journey, he has bumped up against a Communist Party that is extending the paternalistic control it exerts over citizens in life to the way millions behave in confronting death....With each day that Li waits, tensions grow between the government's need to keep order and the will of parents to protect and defend their most precious assets.

QUOTE: In February, a state board ruled that the painting, finished in October, runs afoul of the state’s billboard law, and must be removed. In response, the legislature passed a measure on Saturday that exempts this mural and ones like it — hand-painted signs that urge drivers to visit a designated downtown — from the law.

QUOTE: The Texas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union said it was concerned that the basic rights of the children and mothers connected to a Texas polygamist ranch were violated during a recent raid and custody hearing.